Ugly day

It was a gorgeous, beautiful, "Ugly" day!

We had a very nice crowd at BMF today. A gorgeous day, light winds. Something was in the air the entire afternoon, from foamies, to giant scale to helis of all sorts. Dickie Ober even broke out his AR Drone. We had a couple of new people, and some past members showed up (Hi, Sam!) who haven't flown here for a couple of years.

I flew my Eflite Ultimate 20-300, one of my favorite all time fliers. Have to put some tail weight in and bring the CG aft if I want any 3D out of her. She flew awesome and was a lot of fun!

I also brought out my Hangar 9 Sopwith to try again. I noticed as she waited that her lower left wing had a curve in it. I could see too much of the underside of the wing, and it clearly was twisted, the leading edge lifting up. I don't think the repair I did to the leading edge could have caused this much twist, but I will need to break down the wing end and see if I can straighten it out. I REALLY wanted to fly her, but everyone said it would be suicide. Bill Page took me over when I was whining, and we looked her over. He talked sense into me, and I grounded her... very disappointed. Fixing this wing will be difficult. This photo doesn't show the degree of twist well, but its quite visible. I may be able to get a little push down from the strut, but I have no doubt I will need to refabricate the wind spars and leading edge... I have the PulseXT and the Sbach to build, so once again, the Camel is on the wall for the time being.

Flew my Erazor to much delight today! Flew several packs, then decided to try a side on hover, and did pretty well, both ways. Unfortunately she got away from me and I lost control of her, down she went. As hard as she went down I thought for sure I totaled her, but all that happened was damage to the main gear and the entire CCPM mechanism. Easily fixed. Should have her up after about 2 hours of work (repair, resetting the CCPM). I plan to get that servo wire fixed on my HDX500se, so I can start flying her soon. Probably get to that before repairing the Erazor.

Kenny Chandler brought out a new plane today! He got a great deal from Tower Hobbies on a 40 size Ugly Stick with an OS 0.46 AX motor. In addition to the combo price, he saved more with a coupon and his TH membership. We captured the entire maiden on video!